The BioGRID: Search for Interactions

To fully understand the molecular basis of life, one must gain an appreciation of the role of interactions within the cell. Consider that we know the amino acid composition of every protein in a human cell (as well as other organisms), but we have little clue how all of them “pull their oars in the same direction.” That magic is governed by interactions and is the subject of the sprawling BioGRID site. To give you an idea why I use the term “sprawling”, BioGRID (GRID = “General Repository for Interaction Datasets”) contains information on over 320,000 proteins, over 130,00 non-redundant and over 200,000 total interactions. Access to information is via a search engine where visitors can enter gene names, Entrez IDs, Genbank IDs, or SGD IDs and extract information on 13 species. The site is updated on a regular, monthly basis and the entire dataset of the site can be downloaded (albeit in pieces).